


Flight Plans May Change

by SteeleHoltingOn



Series: Ice and Fire [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 12:54:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4436264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SteeleHoltingOn/pseuds/SteeleHoltingOn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam Wilson had a comfortable life at the VA.  Then he met Steve Rogers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flight Plans May Change

These days, Sam wasn’t often caught off-guard, but about the only predictable thing about Steve Rogers was that he reacted a lot like any soldier coming off a tour.

Sam’d figured out pretty fast that the dude lapping him wasn’t a normal kind of dude. Hell, Sam was a fanboy as much as the rest of them and couldn’t resist the opportunity for a little conversation with Captain America.

And if the easy way Cap had joked with him had been a revelation, so was lost look Sam had seen in too many soldiers. Sam was a sucker for that kind of look.  Mostly because he knew he could do something about it.  The fact that Cap stepped foot inside the VA told Sam a story he’d read a hundred times--of soldiers finding a place they could unload the weights they carried on their shoulders long after they should have set those burdens down.  

Cap sure as hell carried a lot of weight.  

Yeah, he’d seen all the shit on the news, and if anyone really thought Steve Rogers was a traitor, they had another thing coming.  

Nevertheless, discovering Cap and the Black Widow on his doorstep--yeah, that was shocker.

Finding out that Sam Wilson wasn’t going to back down from a good fight was another.  He figured he’d been done with all that. After Riley--well, nothing really made sense anymore.  He’d finished his tour and found something better to do with his time.  

It had been far too easy to dive right back into the fray with a leader like Cap.

He should have expected the weird and impossible.  Hell, Cap was practically the definition of both.  But when Cap came face-to-face with his old friend, the revelations had stunned all of them.  Widow had fought Barnes, more than once. Cap was determined to save him.

Sam thought he understood Cap’s obsession with Barnes.  It sure as hell wasn’t the first couple of dudes Sam had seen pair up. Even though Cap didn’t admit to anything, the signs were clear enough.  

The battle at the Triskilion had been as brutal as what Sam had experienced overseas, and all those skills had come rushing back, as if he’d never left.  

Still, he’d been surprised when no one met Cap at the hospital beyond the Widow.  Fury, he understood, and he supposed Hill had enough problems on her hands, but surely the man had friends?  Family?  Maybe not with S.H.I.E.L.D. in tatters.

So Sam stayed through Cap’s surgery.  They’d just wheeled him into the recovery room when Tony Stark and Pepper Potts blew in like a desert whirlwind.  

Pepper sliced and diced him with her interrogation.  Widow had to vouch for him, and Stark raised his eyebrows.  Sam just shrugged. They didn’t stay long.  

When the Widow escorted a dark-haired nurse into Steve’s hospital room, Sam propped up the wall outside the door and wondered who merited the personal escort of an Avenger.

“Lewis will stay with Cap tonight.  So will I,” Nat told him as she came back out of the room.  “Go get some sleep. Stark’s got a car waiting for you and a couple of bruisers to watch your back.”

“Should I come back?” he wondered.

Nat gave him an odd look.  “Do you want to come back?”

“Yeah.  I think he needs  a friend.”  At her sudden blank look, he added, “Or two.”

She shrugged and propped herself against the door, looking not like a deadly assassin but a non-threatening young woman content to wait a while. “You have a hell of a skill set, Falcon.”

Sure that the conversation had just developed more layers than he could track, he nodded.  “I’ll be back in the morning.”  

  
  


He slid into Stark’s car.  Shit.  

Maria Hill sat neatly with her wrists on her knees.  As the car pulled away, she recited, “Wilson.  Air Force. Code name: Falcon. Single. No immediate family in DC.  Owns a house two miles from the VA where you work full-time. You’re a hell of a counselor, according to your boss, run a tight ship, and seem to have taken Cap under your wing.”

“Nice pun.”

“Accurate?”

“I’m a softie for soldiers with a chip.”

Hill studied him without a hint of softness nor censure.  “Why?”

“Because they’re the ones who do the most good.”  

She nodded once, seeming to have come to some sort of conclusion.  “You’ve made yourself a target, you know.  HYDRA isn’t gone.”

“I know.”

“Your house is being watched. Not by the good guys.”

He swore lightly.  He’d figured, but it was hell getting confirmation.  Now he understood the guards Stark had given him.  

Hill nodded. “Thought you might have figured that out.  Tony Stark wants you to move into the Tower. New York. Gives you a place to stay.  I’ve got someone who will sell your house and get you a good price.  The VA in New York has a job waiting for you.”

“Why?”

“Barnes has always been Captain Rogers’ Achilles heel.”  She crossed her arms and gave Sam a steady look. There was something in the way she spoke that clued him in--S.H.I.E.L.D. had figured out Cap’s attachment.

“You think this is going to be a shitshow.”

Hill looked off to the side. “Study your history, Wilson. Whatever they made of Barnes, there can’t be much of Steve’s friend left.”

“Yeah, I know,” he replied, glancing back toward the hospital. “I got the up close on that one.”

“If we do get Barnes back, we need someone we can trust to work with him.  That list just got pared down to one.”

Sam snapped his head back to glare at Hill. “I’m not a trauma psych.”

“Study up,” she suggested.

There was a challenge there and damned if he didn’t like that.  “How long did you study my file?”

“Widow vouched for you. Thinks you’ll be good for Cap. For what it’s worth, I do too.”

“What’s in it for me?”

“You’ve got a lonely life, Sam.  It doesn’t have to be that way.”

He shot her a hard look. “I thought agents weren’t supposed to have personal lives.”

“You’re not an agent, and this isn’t S.H.I.E.L.D. It’s a friend of a friend who wants you to move into the weirdest, coolest dorm on campus, at the cost of a little hand-holding on your part and a nice paycheck. Stark’s already fished your wings out of the water. He says he has ideas for you.”

“Stark Tower?”

“Avengers Tower, if you like.”

This was not his life. Really.  His life was about an 8 to 5, mowing yards on Saturday mornings.  Beer with the coworkers on Friday night, the occasional date on either or both nights, and every other Sunday at his ma’s house.  “Can I give you an answer in the morning?”

“Here’s my card.”

Hill dropped him at home where the guards did a perimeter check.  Sam did his own reconnaissance, but had to admit he felt better with a little extra muscle on the outside.

Sleep came hard and fast.

  
  


It took a breakfast scrounged together with what was left after Rogers had demolished his pantry a couple of days ago, two cups of coffee, and a lot of muttering under his breath before he caved into what he really wanted.  

He would miss this house, but he figured mowing a lawn on Saturday morning wasn’t going to hold a candle to having his wings back.

It took a single phone call to Hill.  “I’m in.”

“Good. Need a ride to the hospital?”

“One of your crew dropped my car off. I’ll drive.”

“I’ll be in touch.  Don’t pack anything but your go bag. We’ll take care of the rest.”

  
  


The Widow was still holding up a wall when he arrived, sipping a cup of coffee.  She handed him a second coffee.  “For Nurse Lewis. Be nice to her.”

“Is she single?”

Natasha laughed.  “No, not single. Very much not single.”

“Damn.”  He went inside, found Cap still sleeping, and Nurse Lewis sitting beside him with a tablet in her hand.  She closed it up and gave Sam a tired smile as he handed her the cup.  She drank half of it before she came up for air.

“We keeping watch on Cap?” he asked, still trying to figure out how he was suddenly elevated to that duty after only knowing Cap for less than a week.

“Somebody has to do it.  And he likes you.”

He blinked, a little stunned by the compliment. As he reassessed this nurse’s relationship with Cap, he asked. “Who’s giving Natasha a break?”

“She has back up on the way.”  

“Who are you?”

She rose, holding out her hand.  “Darcy Lewis.”  He took it.  There were calluses on her fingers, though not the kind associated with weaponry. She looked over her shoulder at Cap.  “We’re keeping him under for the next day or so to let him heal.  It’s tricky with his metabolism, but safer. Pain meds don’t work all that well on him.  I’ll be back tonight and bring you dinner. Nat’s already programmed my number into your phone.”  

Sam wasn’t sure he liked her all-business attitude and wondered if she was really a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent instead of a nurse.  Maybe Fury put her here to keep an eye on the hospital.   They traded seats, and Wilson got comfortable in the still-warm chair.

She turned to leave, but paused at the door.  “Sam? They told me someone pulled Steve out of the water after he fell from the heli-carriers.  Stark found his shield on the other side of the river.  I’ve seen every inch of footage from his last fight that could be culled from the helicarrier’s monitors. Who was that man he was fighting?”

Reluctant to pass on intel he wasn’t sure he had permission to disclose, he said, “Have you asked Hill?”  

“I’m asking you, Wilson. Because I deserve to know an answer. Who in the hell has that much power over Steve Rogers that he would drop his shield instead of fighting him?”

The pain in her voice was startling compared to the cool tones from before, and she clutched the doorknob like a lifeline.  

Hell, if she was close enough to Rogers to warrant a personal escort by the Widow and had access to the helicarriers’ monitors, Sam figured she would know soon enough anyway.  “He said it was his friend. If you ask me, it sounds like something from legend, but he swears it was  James Buchanan Barnes,” Sam said bluntly.

She made a soft keening noise and pressed her head against the door. “Why are you here, Wilson?”

“Captain America needed my help.  Pretty good reason right there. Why are you here, Lewis?”  

She looked him square in the eye, unable to hide the fact she’d been shattered into pieces.  “Because I’m the girlfriend.”  

He couldn’t hide his own shock. And from her tone, Lewis knew all about Rogers and Barnes.  “Aw, hell.”

She let out a soft, bitter laugh. “Yeah, that.”  With a deep breath, she gave him a grateful smile. “Thank you.  I, uh, work in Stark Tower.  Maria tells me you’re moving in.  You’ll like it, I hope.”  

She slipped out the door, though from the heated conversation in the hallway, Lewis gave Romanov hell.  

A quick search on his cell phone told him Darcy Lewis wasn’t a nurse at all, but one of the vice-presidents at Stark Industries.  He hummed, appreciating the cover. Girlfriend, huh? Yeah, he’d give Darcy Lewis a nice pass and slot her firmly into the friend category.  

  
  


Still dressed in scrubs, Darcy brought him dinner that evening and relieved him of duty.  He brought her coffee the next morning and saw the traces of tears on her face as she held Steve’s hand.  Sam settled in with his book and his iPod when she went home.

Steve woke late that morning, not for long, but enough to be a snarky asshole.  By evening, Cap woke up for good, argued with the doctors, and checked himself out AMA. Sam drove Cap to his shattered apartment.  

Darcy was there, with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She wore jeans and steel-toed shoes as she and a couple of guys wearing Stark Industries t-shirts packed up Cap’s apartment.  It was mostly empty by now, and one of the men was sweeping out debris from the corners.

Steve scooped her up into a hug and a kiss that made Sam’s eyebrows go up.  (Go, Cap. The boy’s got game.) They disappeared into the bedroom, though they didn’t bother closing the door.  When they came out a few minutes later, their fingers were laced together.  Darcy leaned into the Steve, and he dropped a kiss on the back of her hand.

With a grateful, somewhat bashful smile that didn’t seem to belong to Cap at all, Steve made introductions.  “Darcy, this is Sam Wilson. I dragged him into this mess. Sam, this is my girlfriend, Darcy Lewis.”

“How long have you been together?”

“Two years now.” Steve gave her an adoring look, one that Sam would swear was as real as the determination Cap had about going after Barnes.

“Is he really an asshole in real life, or am I imagining things?” Sam asked Darcy.  

She laughed, her face lighting up.  Damn, she was beautiful. “He really is.”

“Hey--” Steve protested.  

 

*****

 

Sam moved into the Tower a week or so later.  With Steve out chasing a lead, he took the opportunity to get his stuff settled. It took most of the morning to arrange the furniture the way he wanted and set up the kitchen.

But by mid-afternoon, the place looked better.  He still got distracted every hour or so with the view of Manhattan from his living room.  He could see the Hudson river from here.

Tony dropped in at one point, introduced him to JARVIS, handed Sam a new set of wings, and vanished before Sam could thank him for the new digs.

Pepper was less mysterious.  She brought him cookies, a bottle of wine, and an invitation to dinner the following night in the Commons with the rest of the team.  He found out he was sharing a floor with Widow and Hawkeye, and wasn’t that a hell of a shock? They’d be back in town in time for the Thursday night dinner too.

He never expected Maria Hill to pop in.  She did, taking the offered cup of coffee and one of Pepper’s cookies.

“You want a tour of the Tower?” she asked.  

Yeah, he kind of did.  “Do you live here, too?” he asked, as he found his shoes and laced them up.

“Nope.  I’ve got an apartment not too far from here. I don’t like living where I work.”

“You work here?” Sam asked in confusion.

“Potts hired me as Director of Security for SI.”

“Is that a cover?”

“Not at all.  But I have a lot of latitude about my extracurricular activities,” she grinned.  

For the first time, he let himself really look at Maria Hill.  The t-shirt and jeans clung to her  well-muscled shoulders and thighs.  He found her looking right back at him.  

“You know, I’d like to take you to dinner,” he suggested.

Her eyes sparkled with amusement.  “Depends on your intentions, Lieutenant Wilson.”

“An offer of friendship, with a splash of interest, if that’s not out of line.”  

“I don’t think that’s out of line at all,” she agreed.  “Are we doing burgers and beer or wining and dining?”

“Um, that depends on how you feel about the Knicks chances in the playoffs,” Sam offered.

Maria filched another cookie from the box. “Not very good, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t enjoy yelling at them while they lose.”

Sam grinned.  “Beer and burgers, it is. We can yell at them together and see how this all turns out.”

 

*****

 

Meeting Steve Rogers filled Sam Wilson’s world with surprises.   But by the time he had dinner with the Avengers and scoped out the facilities in Stark Tower available for his use, he decided he’d made the right decision.  

When Barnes showed up, and Sam had to use every bit of his compassion, creativity, and intelligence to help pull him out of his hell, he knew he’d found a real home again.  

And when Maria frog-marched him out of the Tower one night for wining and dining at her place, he figured it would all turn out just fine.

  
  


 

**Author's Note:**

> A/N I made a goof when I originally wrote Ice and Fire, in that I made Sam Wilson a lieutenant for two reason. One, I was thinking "Air Force Test Pilot," which is always an officer. Also, I wanted to differentiate Wilson from the "Captain" and the "Sergeant." 
> 
> However, as blackglass noted, pararescues are NCOs. Sam identifies as a pararescue (PJ), not a pilot, so this is my error. PJs are absolute badasses, so this is my mistake. 
> 
> To rewrite Ice and Fire to make this change requires quite a bit of rework, so I will acknowledge the error and leave the original story as is.


End file.
